The wider international community can play a role at this critical moment. To keep open the window for a negotiated solution, Europe and the United States must make clear their expectation that the Palestinians should refrain from unilateral steps and stay at the table.

The West's experience in Iraq should have offered a lesson about nation building or destroying. Before there can be a Palestinian state all parts of that proposed state have to be at peace with each other and dedicated to peace with Israel.

Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to bring both the Palestinian Authority and the Israelis back to the negotiating table should be lauded as a positive step, the obstacles to any potential peace agreement are still ever-present, numerous and seemingly, at the moment, unsolvable.

US Secretary of State John Kerry must be chuffed at his success in bringing Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table. It took six visits to the region and hours of arm twisting behind the scenes to restart the peace talks that broke down in 2008.

It is now a matter of when, not if, the West Bank boils over into violent protests. All eyes are on events in Damascus, Cairo and Istanbul while Israel continues to oversee the long­est military occupation in the world, 46 years and counting.

In all likelihood on Thursday afternoon the UN General Assembly will agree to the request of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to change the status of Palestine at the UN from observer entity to non-member state. Aside from the Palestinians having to print a new set of headed note paper, what will this achieve? Unfortunately, for ordinary Palestinians, the answer is very little.

Proper recognition of Palestine by the UN General Assembly is not the same as peace in the Middle East, but it is a step on the road. Peace can only come from negotiations between the parties and international agreements.

"An act of deliberate vandalism" was how Nick Clegg described Israeli settlement building on Monday...But the demand for a complete halt to all Israeli construction over the Green Line is now a road-block preventing the commencement of bilateral talks.